I certainly was performing before my writing was published, because I was performing when I was very young. And the thing is I'm very comfortable on stage, so a large portion of my act did come from ad-libs.

Not only do I lie, I take real pleasure in lying, in the transmission of magic effects.

Once you get into the era of the printed book, it gets a little easier. After years and years, you make a serious survey of that literature, and then you make it more specific depending on what kind of case appears. I never set out to collect material on cheating at bowling, but I found out that after 20 years, I had a lot of material on cheating at bowling.

Theft annoys me more than anything else. The purloining of effects from another magician. Some people think it's massive to steal the secrets of nuclear reactors, but to steal a card move is trivial. They're wrong.

Every acting gig isn't the same, every writing job isn't the same, every live performance isn't the same - the challenge is the level of difficulty or ease, and that may vary.

I'm pretty fortunate that I'm in the films I'm in largely because the directors have asked me to be in them. I'd love to do more of them, but the writing and historical stuff I'll probably always do.

My father was the Formica King of Long Island, and my mother was the daughter of a Bengal Lancer in India.